Varia.
Three Plays
– Three Plays – Three Plays!
The Flight.
Posting #5.
“It
happened! An eternal separation
I
see before myself.”
M. Lermontov. Separation.
Calling General Khludov a “blind killer” [see the
previous posting], Bulgakov reminds the researcher that this is exactly how
Margarita calls Pontius Pilate in chapter 32 of Master and Margarita, Forgiveness
and Eternal Refuge:
“Margarita saw how the seated man, whose
eyes appeared blind, was rubbing his hands and peering these same unseeing eyes
into the lunar disk.”
As for General Khludov, “his mind must have dimmed,”
according to Golubkov.
“Khludov. And now from two sides: alive, talking, absurd, and from the other side
silent messenger. What is happening to me? My soul has split, and I hear words
vaguely, as though through water. Both cursed ones are weighing down on my feet
and pulling me into darkness and that darkness is calling me.”
Regarding the splitting of the soul and by calling
Charnota a “major-general,” Bulgakov tries to lead the researcher off the right
track. Remember that N. S. Gumilev has called A. A. Blok a “major-general,” and
K. D. Balmont a “staff-captain,” and that V. Mayakovsky in his poem It’s Good! has called Blok a “soldier.”
Considering how hard Blok was dying, Bulgakov quite likely presented him in his
play The Flight as Private Krapilin.
Otherwise it is impossible in such a situation to imagine Gumilev kneeling
before anybody no matter who.
Rejoicing at the news that Serafima is alive, and that
she is with Charnota, Golubkov is talking Khludov into leaving for
Constantinople.
“Khludov (mumbling). Well, I have satisfied one of them [Golubkov]. Now I am at liberty to talk to you. (Into space.) What do you want? That I stay? No! He does
not respond! He pales, draws back, covered in darkness and stands at a distance…”
Opening the 5th Dream, Bulgakov once again
presents proof that in Serafima and Golubkov the researcher is dealing with
Marina Tsvetaeva and Andrei Bely, as both of them have poems with the title Separation [following Lermontov].
Curiously, Bely dedicates his Separation to
Tsvetaeva.
“A strange symphony. They are singing
Turkish tunes, intertwined with which is the Russian hurdy-gurdy Separation.”
The 6th Dream of Bulgakov’s play The Flight starts with this familiar
epigraph: “Separation, you Separation.”
It turns out that Golubkov is walking around Constantinople with a hurdy-gurdy,
playing Separation. [With Serafima?]
In the 7th Dream, Charnota joins forces
with Golubkov in order to find Serafima’s husband. Has the researcher noticed
that the name Serezha, which Bulgakov
gives to Golubkov, is also the name of Marina Tsvetaeva’s husband Sergei Efron?
Having won $20,000 from the immensely rich Paramon
Ilyich Korzukhin in a card game, Charnota and Golubkov leave Paris for
Constantinople, while Lyuska stays in Paris with Korzukhin, hoping to marry him
and have a good and prosperous life.
As for Archbishop African of Simferopol whom Bulgakov
simultaneously calls “the chemist Makhrov” in the list of Dramatis Personae, this puzzle is easy to solve. Because the Russian
poetess Marina Tsvetaeva is present in Bulgakov’s play The Flight, the word “Chemist,
Alchemist” becomes a code word in Bulgakov. Like other words, such as “Magician, Magus, Sorcerer, Hypnotizer,”
they reveal the fact that famous Russian poets are hiding behind them. Marina
Tsvetaeva was positively inclined toward the prototype of this personage, as he
was helping her, a beginning poetess. They were even friends, she and Max Voloshin...
But Bulgakov is not so charitable toward him, showing
him hardly from his best side in his works.
Remaining to be explained is Paramon Ilyich Korzukhin,
Serafima’s husband. In the play’s list of Dramatis
Personae, Bulgakov places him before the names of the counterintelligence
agents. This is perhaps a hint that in all likelihood, Bulgakov presents here
Marina Tsvetaeva’s husband Sergei Efron, who was an intelligence agent.
Something must have happened in connection with his line of work first in
Switzerland and then in Germany. Marina Tsvetaeva was interrogated in Switzerland,
but she was not involved in her husband’s activities and was let go.
Meanwhile her husband really got in trouble, which
Bulgakov shows allegorically in the 7th Dream in the form of a card
game which he lost. Significantly, the epigraph to the 7th Dream
comes from A. Pushkin’s Pique Dame:
“Three Cards! Three Cards! Three Cards! – Pique
Dame.”
Bulgakov points to the husband of Marina Tsvetaeva by
giving Golubkov the first name Sergei, which is also the first name of Sergei
Efron. Detained by White counterintelligence, Golubkov succumbs to pressure and
signs a paper against Serafima who immediately understands what has happened.
Spotting the Cossack General Charnota in the street she starts crying for help.
–
“…Charnota!
Is that you? Charnota! Intercede! See what they
are doing to me! See what they made him write! Charnota picks up the
document.”
Charnota sets Serafima free and leaves together with
his people and Serafima.
What must strike the reader is that Serafima not for a
second suspects Golubkov of betrayal, but is convinced that Golubkov was forced
to do what he did.
In this 3rd Dream, Bulgakov introduces the image of the needle choosing the
following as his epigraph:
“The needle glows in the dream…”
We have a dual image here. On the one hand, there is a
strong indication of torture or a threat of torture. On the other hand, a
needle symbolizes human conscience.
Bulgakov inserts the image of a needle several times
in his novel Master and Margarita. In
the 23rd chapter Satan’s Great
Ball, for the transgression of being unfaithful to her husband, Margarita
had an image of a black poodle in an oval frame with a heavy chain hung on her
chest. When the second hour began its count, Margarita stared noticing that her
chain had become heavier. An acute pain, as though from a needle, suddenly
pierced Margarita’s right arm and, clenching her teeth, she put her elbow on
the stand.
The reader learns that the “needle” appeared in
chapter 20 during Margarita’s conversation with Azazello, on the first
anniversary of her sitting there with master.
“Margarita was squinting at the bright sun,
remembering her dream of today, and remembering how exactly one year ago, same
day, same hour, she was sitting on this same bench with him [master] under the
Kremlin Wall, from where she could see the Manezh.”
Bulgakov writes that the pain from the needle went
away only when she rubbed her body with Azazello’s cream.
“…Then instantly, as though a needle had
been pulled out of her brain, her temple stopped aching, having bothered her
all evening since the meeting [with Azazello] in the Alexandrovsky Garden.”
The next mention of a “needle” comes in the 30th
chapter It’s Time! It’s Time! – again
before Azazello’s arrival. Bulgakov writes:
“Having slept until the Saturday sunset,
both master and his woman-friend felt completely reinvigorated, and only one
thing reminded them about yesterday’s adventure in the no-good apartment #50:
both of them had a slight pain in the left temple.”
And in chapter 32 Forgiveness
And Eternal Refuge Bulgakov writes that “master’s
memory, that restless, needle-pricked memory, started switching off.”
It is possible that Bulgakov took the idea of the
needle from A. S. Pushkin’s 1833 poem Angelo.
In this poem, Pushkin offers the choice between the sister’s dishonor and the
brother’s death.
“Isabella. Dear brother! God sees that if I could solely by my grave save you from
the execution, I would not have valued my life more than a needle’s worth.
Claudio. Death is horrible!
Isabella. And shame is horrible.
Claudio. My friend! Sister! Let me live. And if it takes a sin to save your
brother from death, Nature will pardon that sin.
Isabella. What dare you say? Coward! Soulless creature! You expect to live by
your sister’s corruption! Incestuous scum! I cannot even think! No way! – Die!
Claudio.
Sister, forgive me!”
The Conclusion: Among people of honor, death is
preferable to dishonor. Only murderous thugs would prefer dishonor.
To be continued…
***
No comments:
Post a Comment